


Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

by afteriwake



Series: Dreams [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Break Up, Dreams, Dreams vs. Reality, F/M, Light Angst, Love Triangles, Mentioned Molly Hooper/Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Pregnant Carol, Prophetic Dreams, Sad Carol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 21:18:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7480452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carol knows that the woman McCoy is dreaming about in the "true love" dreams is Molly, not her, and she's willing to let him go. But in the course of their conversation, she's surprised to find someone else had already done so so that <i>she</i> could have him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boulevard Of Broken Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sideofrawr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sideofrawr/gifts).



> I had planned on writing this _looooooong_ ago, but when I posted a log that I finished between myself and **sideofrawr** it made this entire bit of the series AU, so I pulled the two dream stories out and made them a trilogy, capped off by this story. It's more or less what I had in mind happening in the "Stuff Of Improbable Legends" series but tweaked a little bit. Hope you enjoy, hun!

She wasn’t blind, and she wasn’t an idiot. She hadn’t quite realized the situation she had walked into when she’d arrived in this universe and she’d taken up with Leonard. She hadn’t known the depth of his history with Molly. If she had, she never would have let the flirtations go as far as they had and she _certainly_ never would have shagged him, of that she was most certain. No, it was quite apparent, _especially_ since these damnable dreams had started, that she was not the one he was dreaming of.

Molly Hooper was.

She waited for him to come back to the apartment from the clinic. He spent quite a bit of his time there now, in a rather neat game of avoidance. She couldn’t blame him, really; she’d been snippy and hadn’t given him much reason to want to be around. But she’d come to realize, with the dreams that she’d been having, that she loved _her_ Leonard, who wasn’t here, and _this_ Leonard’s heart belonged to another and she didn’t want to take it away. She deserved better and he deserved to be happy, as did she. She knew he needed fresh clothing eventually, so she’d set aside going out until she knew he’d eventually come back.

The key in the lock alerted her to his presence, and she set her book aside, pulling her feet underneath her on the chair. He came in and stopped when he saw her in the living room, like he was surprised she was still in the apartment. She could have gone to Jim’s, she supposed, but that would _also_ be awkward, considering he and Leonard were best mates. “Hey,” he said quietly.

She nodded. “Hello,” she said. “We need to talk.”

He ran a hand through his hair, as though he was going to try and find a way to avoid the conversation, and then he sighed and ended up running a hand over his face. She could see he hadn’t shaved in a day or s, as there was stubble on his cheeks and chin. _Good Lord,_ she thought to himself. _He’s taking worse care of himself than I thought_ “Yeah, I guess we do.”

She waited for him to sit in the other chair in the sitting room, as neither of them seemed to want the sofa, and then she studied him. She was going to look at him, no matter how hard this conversation got. “You’ve been having the dreams, haven’t you?” she asked quietly. “Of your true love?”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said.

“And it’s Molly?” she ventured. He didn’t answer verbally, simply nodding again. She bit her lip at that. It hurt to hear the confirmation but it didn’t surprise her. This Leonard and her...they’d had what amounted to a flirtation. A brief fling. He and Molly had had years together to build a solid foundation of friendship. “Is she dreaming of you?”

“I don’t know,” he said, looking down at his hands. “But I know she loves me. She told me a little while ago. I made her tell me.”

Carol’s eyes widened. She hadn’t realized her _knew_ that Molly was in love with him, and prior to the dreams. “I...see,” she said slowly. 

“She told me she’d rather end our friendship than make me choose her over you,” he said. “She was willing to do that, for the baby.”

Carol felt something at that she hadn’t expected to feel. She was ready to give Leonard up, and hadn’t realized Molly had already done so, had already said for him to forget about having any relationship with her and make things work with her. And she could see that up until the dreams had happened, he had tried. But the dreams...they had told him what he had denied deep down. No wonder he had tried to avoid her. “And you tried to make things work,” she said quietly.

“I have a responsibility,” he said, looking up at her.

“You can have a responsibility to the baby and not be miserable,” she said. “What type of environment would that be for our child if we hate each other? I don’t want to raise a child that way. I deserve better, frankly, and so do you.” She tilted her head. “I love a different Leonard McCoy. I love a version who loved me back, who grew to know me as well as I know myself. You are not that man. But you know Molly that well, and she knows you that well in return. I didn’t realize she was willing to forgo her happiness for the sake of mine but I think it’s foolish. I want _my_ Leonard, not a substitute. She should have the man she loves. And you should be with the woman you want to be with, not the one you feel duty bound to. We can figure out a way to raise this child together without being romantically involved. It’s done all the time, from what I understand. But I am not going to settle for less than what I deserve, and you shouldn’t either. It’s not fair to either of us, and it’s not fair to her, either.”

McCoy looked at her in surprise. “You’re taking this better than I thought.”

“To be honest, I’ve known for a little while you don’t love me, and I don’t think you could ever love me, not the way I deserve. Not when you love someone else, even if you wouldn’t admit it,” she said, giving him a sad smile. “And I had hoped that you could love me the way my Leonard did without realizing you _aren’t_ my Leonard and you never could be. So we both made mistakes and while we do have something that we need to deal with because of our actions, we don’t need to make any more rash actions that will only cause heartache. We both deserve some happiness in our lives, even if, in my case, it takes time to find.”

McCoy nodded, and then stood up, coming over to her and kissing the top of her head. “You always were one of the smart ones,” he said.

“You damn well know it,” she said with a smile. “Now go change and for God’s sake, shave some of that scruff off your face before you go and inform Molly that you’re no longer attached.”

“Yes ma’am,” he said with a half grin before pulling away completely. He moved away and walked towards the bathroom, and she watched him for a moment before leaning into the chair. It was done. They were officially absolved of their relationship. Now all that needed to be seen was if they could function well enough as friends to navigate the rest of their lives together joined by the child they would share. But she had hopes that even as her romantic dreams with him died, that perhaps a new future could spring up in its place and new dreams could emerge.


End file.
